


A Few Times Peter Came Home With New Tattoos

by InsecurelyPerfect



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Endgame is NOT canon, Endgame is mentioned, Marvel - Freeform, Oops, Pierced Peter, THERE IS A DEATH BUT ITS ONLY MENTIONED, Tattooed Peter, Tattooed Tony, a lot of the avengers get a tattoo, also tony and pepper arent together, but IT IS NOT THE STORY, by the time the story is over he is twenty eight, he starts at twenty three, i love the idea of the avengers having tattoos, mcu - Freeform, peter is not a child anymore, so therefore there is no morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 20:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsecurelyPerfect/pseuds/InsecurelyPerfect
Summary: "Hey, Mr. Stark, um, would you," Peter had started pacing around his room, "would you maybe consider coming with me to get this?"Tony didn't answer for a long time.  When Peter realized that he wasn't getting a response, he stopped pacing.  All he saw was Tony Stark smiling at him with so much pride and joy that his cheeks were bright red.  "Yes," Tony whispered, "I would be honored to go with you while you get that done."or;Peter Parker comes back to the Stark Tower with new tattoos.





	A Few Times Peter Came Home With New Tattoos

All of the Avengers had a running joke that the day Peter Parker actually got a tattoo would be the day that Thor didn't try to kill Loki. That was all it ever was, a joke. From the time that Peter was sixteen until he was twenty-three and he walked into Stark Towers, a big stupid grin on his face.

Natasha was the one who saw him first. His arm was behind his back like he was hiding something. Peter didn't have many tells for when he was lying, but when he was keeping something as a surprise, he made sure that everyone around him knew it. This time was no different.

Under normal circumstances, Peter knew Natasha probably would have called an Avengers meeting, but they stopped doing that after the third time Peter had walked into Stark Towers looking like that, only to reveal a picture or a flower or a present. A couple of times, it was even a fake tattoo.

Peter walked over to where Nat was lounging on the couch, looking at something he didn't recognize nor care enough to really find out what it was. She smirked up at him, probably thinking she knew all of his tricks and that he couldn't get anything past her, no matter how badly he wanted to. "What Cretan do you have behind your back this time, Parker?" she asked unimpressed. Ah, she was thinking that he was holding a photo of one of those creepy babies where he had taken pictures of the Avengers and mashed them together. That had become a game after the fourth time he brought one of those in, trying to guess which two Avengers he had decided to mash together that time.

Her assumption only made Peter's grin widen, this time showing off his pearly white teeth. He didn't respond and Natasha looked up, her curiosity spiked. "Huh," she said, turning to get a better view of Peter, "your grin is even more shit-eating than usual."

He rolled his eyes and the smile disappeared from his face. "Come on," she urged. "Cough it up."

"Okay, okay," he said, removing his arm out from behind his thin but muscular torso. To Nat's surprise, there was nothing in his hand. However, on his arm, there was a small patch of skin that had been wrapped up in a clear saran wrap type of thing. The smugness in her face dropped and the color in her cheeks drained.

For as long as any of the Avengers had known Peter, they had known he had a horrific fear of needles and that his aunt was too overprotective of him to let him get ink. That was before Tony had taken a fatherly role over the kid and even before Happy became his uncle of sorts. As long as they were alive, there was no way in hell that Peter Benjamin Parker was getting a fucking tattoo. That was the reason that their joke had lasted for so long.

Peter had always expressed an interest in getting one, outwardly claiming he had wanted one from the age of twelve or so. He didn't admit it until sixteen, so none of them could really be too sure, but they hadn't really known Peter to be a liar, so they had no reason not to believe him. As all of the other Avengers liked the ideas of tattoos (granted, for some of them, it may have only been after Peter expressed his interest, but they still liked the idea), they all slowly got tattoos one by one. Knowing that it would slowly kill Peter inside, having him know that he couldn't get one, they would proudly show it off to him as often as they could.

Thor had been the first one to do it. He had gotten a tattoo of Mjolnir on the inside of his left wrist. He was followed shortly by Sam, Bucky, and Steve, who had all gone together. Shortly after that, Natasha got one. That was about a year before they picked up their new members after defeating Thanos.

After they had won the war, Thor and Wanda had wasted no time telling T'Challa and Shuri and Stephen Strange and everyone they gained on their side, whether they were dubbed an official Avenger or not. That pissed Peter off pretty badly because it meant that they were another bunch of people that could mock him. Shuri was the same age as Peter at the time, so she wouldn't have been able to get one, but T'Challa was much more lenient about it than May, Tony, and Happy.

Within the next year, T'Challa had a tattoo (as did Shuri), Wanda had two and was planning to get a third, Stephen had gotten one, Tony was on the fence about it, and even Peter Quill had gotten one. All in the name of mocking Peter. Well, not so much by that point, but it had certainly started for most of them like that. The only people who remained without tattoos after that point were Peter, Bruce, the rest of the Guardians, and Rhodey. (Clint didn't get a tattoo during that point, either, but he had already had several tattoos, so he didn't count.)

Natasha moved towards Peter, her green eyes focused on the small image that was covered in scabs on Peter's arm. She took his thin arm in her hands. It was a medium spider web. She jerked back from him, replacing the look of surprise with one that may have resembled something close to respect and being impressed. "Wow, you actually went through with it."

"Yeah, I did. I almost didn't, but on my way out this morning, Mr. Stark said something that made me reconsider."

"Mr. Stark, huh?" Peter looked down sheepishly. "I don't get why you still call him that. He's been insisting that you call him Tony for years now. Besides, didn't you call him Tony two weeks ago?"

Peter shook his head, bewildered that she had that sharp of a mind, but he agreed with here. "Yes, but it felt weird." 

From there, Peter got Natasha's help breaking it to May and Tony that he had a tattoo. Granted, she had convinced him not to use his words, but to stick out his arm as much as possible because it was on the side of his wrist. He had always liked the advice that Nat had given him, so he followed that. It was fun to watch May cry that Peter wasn't her little boy anymore (which warranted a "May, I haven't been living here in five years, I haven't been a little boy for years" from Peter). Tony's reaction was much different than May's, which Peter was expecting, but differently. He was expecting Tony to just lose his cool and tell Peter that he was being unbearably irresponsible, but that wasn't what he said at all. He told Peter that he was proud of him for overcoming fear and doing exactly what he had wanted to do, that he didn't let others boss him around for once ("You are one of those people, Mr. Stark." Tony just ignored that) and that he knew Peter was going to do great things. Tony was the one who told Happy, who just sighed said he hoped that wouldn't turn Peter into a menace ("How can you say that Happy? Over half the team has at least one tattoo -- Wanda has _four _and you haven't said anything like this to them!" Happy just rolled his eyes and walked away).

Overall, everyone's reactions had been fairly good. Thor was the only one who made a huge thing of it ("Does this mean I have to," he paused, pretending to choke on his words, "get along with Loki now?") and screamed that they couldn't make him be nice to Loki because Loki wasn't capable of being nice.

Based on the fact that everything had gone well, Peter started thinking up some more tattoos he wanted to get. He even considered piercings. He tried to imagine himself with an eyebrow piercing, but it just didn't work. He did, however, think he could pull off a tongue piercing.

-

The second time he did it, he didn't say anything to anyone. He just walked in and acted like he hadn't basically lost the use of his entire right hand while a giant, intricate spider had been tattooed onto the back of his hand. The entire team stared at him in awe when he threw an apple up and caught it before taking a large bite out of it. Well, they were staring at the arachnid on his hand, but it was all the same to him. He smiled. 

He didn't even address it when asked about it directly. When Steve asked him when and where he got it done, he pretended like it had been there for years. While Peter really liked the tattoo and it became his favorite thing to admire, he still wanted more.

It was safe to say that Peter did not believe that all tattoos needed to have meaning to them.

That wasn't something anyone had really known about him until Tony went up to talk to Peter one night, shortly after he had gotten his spider tattoo.

Tony had wrapped on his door but didn't wait for a response before barging in. It was a little funny to Peter that Tony was still acting like Peter was still just a teenager.

Peter had always been more into the arts and whenever he wasn't slinging webs at bad guys, he was trying to draw some more. He had been doing it for as long as he could remember. Any time he fought with Ned, he would just draw his feelings out. Tony had known that Peter really liked the arts and when he first moved into the Tower, the first thing that Tony got for Peter was an art kit filled with all the Copic markers he could wish for, so Tony hadn't really been all that surprised when he walked into Peter's room to find him drawing.

It was more _what _Peter was drawing that Tony had been confused about. He picked up the one closest to him, the one most discarded from Peter. It was an arm and on it was a compass with all the minor details sketched into it and everything.

Peter tried to snatch it back, but the rolly chair got caught on one of the pieces of discarded clothes on the ground and he fell backward, ineffectively grabbing his artwork back. "What is this, Pete?"

Peter stood up and tried to play cool. "Just a tattoo design."

Tony studied the design carefully, pulling it close to his face and back every once in a while. He looked over it for about six minutes with Peter just standing there, breathing heavily, clearly not liking where the judgment was going. He tried to snatch the drawing back, but Tony was quick and turned away. "Ah, ah, ah, not done yet," he said in a weird voice that made Peter shudder.

Tony held onto the design for another two minutes before wheeling back around to face Peter. "Impressive," he said in a calm tone that Peter wasn't expecting. He was still breathing heavily and it was only due to the anxiety pumping rapidly through his veins. "What's the meaning behind it?"

Crap. Peter knew the question would come up eventually. The first two were no brainers for anyone that knew him even a little bit, partially for the reason that he didn't want anyone to ask him why he got the tattoo. Apparently, "because I wanted it" didn't fly with most people. He didn't have a specific reason for drawing the compass other than the fact that he just happened to like it, but again, that line wasn't good enough for everyone. It really pissed Peter off that they didn't think that was a worthy enough answer. At the same time, it also scared him half to death because there was Tony, the one singular person whose opinion mattered the most in the world to Peter, expecting some deep meaningful thing... and there Peter stood, in the middle of his disastrous room, floundering and sputtering up nonsense. 

"I.. Well, it... You see... It has..." He took a deep breath. He could be honest with Tony. He wasn't a helpless little child anymore. He could take care of himself, for the most part, and he wasn't sure why he was still so afraid of Tony's reaction, but every time Tony looked over something he did, he felt like he was fourteen again, getting his suit taken away because "he wasn't mature enough to handle it," even nine years later.

"Kid, you don't need to be afraid. I mean, it would be nice to know the meaning behind it, but you don't have to tell me what--"

Peter sucked in a deep breath as he drowned out what Tony was saying. _One... two... three..._ Before he lost the nerve, he blurted out: "It doesn't have meaning!"

Tony must not have expected an outburst like that because he took a step back and crossed his arms. It crinkled his suit and it made the bottom edges of it just a little too short. There was a look of surprise on his face, which quickly turned hardened as he tried to keep his father figure look in check. He raked his eyes up and down Peter. Peter shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"Huh," he said quietly.

Peter snapped his head up, his eyes wild, "what? What did I do? Did I even do anything?"

Tony chuckled. It was he who dropped his head this time. "No, kid, you didn't do anything. You just don't really strike me as the type to get a tattoo without a meaning. That's all."

Peter nodded his head slowly, unable to wrap his mind around what Tony said, but as the words sank in, he began to shake his head. "No, you don't get to tell me what kinds of tattoos I can and can't get." He was trying to stand his ground and stick up for himself for the first time in his life.

"Kid, Pete, I wasn't trying to tell you that you can't get meaningless tattoos. I have a couple myself, I was just saying that knowing your personality, you just didn't seem like the type to me."

Peter nodded, allowing himself to listen to Tony, _really _listen to him. This time, he heard everything that Tony said to him. Peter thought for a moment. "Can I see your tattoos? You were never someone who showed them to me when the rest of the team was making fun of me for not being able to get tattoos. I knew you had been considering them, but I didn't know that you had actually gone through and gotten them."

"There's a reason for that, Pete."

Peter just looked at him pleadingly. Tony sighed and started to take off his shirt. "Whoa, whoa, what the hell are you doing?"

"You wanted to see my tattoos, right?" Peter swallowed audibly, but he nodded. "Alright, well, they're on my torso under my shirt, alright?" Peter allowed Tony to continue taking off his shirt.

As soon as Tony's shirt was off, it revealed several tattoos with great amounts of detail and none of them looked like anything that Tony would ever get on his body. The first one that Peter noticed was the tattoo of the Arc Reactor. Tony didn't need it anymore, but he still had an attachment to it, so seeing it didn't really surprise Peter. He knew that one had meaning, so he moved to look at the next one. That one was on his hip. It was a comic book style and it read "BAM!" Definitely not something the Tony Peter knew would have gotten, but he had it, so Peter guessed he just didn't know Tony all that well. There were a few others that Tony had, but it was all just really cool to Peter. 

In his mind, he thanked Tony for not showing off to Peter that he got some tattoos just because he could like the other Avengers (and Quill). Tony always had Peter's best interest in mind, not that Peter believed that, but this showed him that Tony really did have a heart and did care about Peter.

"Hey, Mr. Stark, um, would you," Peter had started pacing around his room, "would you maybe consider coming with me to get this?"

Tony didn't answer for a long time. When Peter realized that he wasn't getting a response, he stopped pacing. All he saw was Tony Stark smiling at him with so much pride and joy that his cheeks were bright red. "Yes," Tony whispered, "I would be honored to go with you while you get that done."

-

Over the years, Peter got bolder with the tattoos he was getting. He now had the spider on his hand, the web on the side of his left wrist, "with great power comes great responsibility" on his right wrist (that was the only one Aunt May would say that she approved of. When Peter got his done, May also got Ben's death date on her wrist, just a little way for both of them to say they loved and missed Ben), a gorgeous purple hepatica flower on one of his biceps, a skull on his right leg, the compass that Tony took him to get was placed on the inside of his left forearm, and a pair of angel wings on his shoulder blades with a halo on top of them.

He slowly became the second most tattooed Avenger (aside from one Mr. Clint Barton, who would probably always come in first) and it was something that was no longer shocking to the Avengers. Every time they saw a new tattoo, they would say "Nice ink" and move on. It no longer had anything to do with their baby growing up.

However, what did shock them back into paying loads of attention to Peter was when he came back from personal training one day with about four new piercings that he didn't have before (the amount he had had before was zero). He had gotten industrial piercings in both of his ears, he got his lip pierced, and had gotten the left helix done. 

When he was questioned about it, all he said was that the piercer was nervous about doing two ear piercings on the same day, but Peter assured him that it would be fine. He also said that he showed the manager at the store some of his artwork and how he designed the compass tattoo that was on the inside of his left forearm and he was offered a job there. When everyone stared at him expectantly, he clarified that he had accepted. He figured that that part had been obvious, but as no one seemed to expect that part, he supposed it wasn't so much.

He informed them that he would start on Monday, but they need not worry because he would still be there for all of his superhero duties. They all still seemed a little uneasy.

-

When he was twenty-eight years old, Peter Parker was finally starting to become happier with his appearance as he looked over himself in the mirror. His tattoos and piercings really seemed to help him get a bearing for who he was and what he was comfortable with. 

His eyes slid over to the picture of thirteen years old him before he had gotten his powers when everyone was still bullying him and everyone on the Avengers told him that he wouldn't be able to get tattoos. He dragged his eyes back over to the latest tattoo that he had gotten and the one that meant the most to him.

The blue seemed to glow, even though it was just an image on his chest. Peter Parker had gotten the very same Arc Reactor tattoo that Tony had just after Tony's death. He smiled fondly at it and brushed his fingers along the edges of the tattoo. It was his favorite reminder of one of the best father figures he had ever had.

He knew Tony wouldn't have been mad at him.

**Author's Note:**

> this is so messy i know  
i'm sorry  
i was just trying to get words and instead i made this mess  
i lowkey want to make it a series???  
like  
peter parker and his tattoos  
but idk


End file.
